Only at home behind closed and locked doors. And drawn curtains.
And even then, what would be the point? For the same money, I can buy a decent TV that 1) won't hurt my eyes, 2) friends can also enjoy, 3) doesn't requirement me to hide from the world because of how moronic I look.
The real problem is that the ESRB rating was way too low in the first place. M is probably the correct rating for the game, considering it's more violent and gruesome than Halo (which got an M. Then again, I don't really feel Halo deserved an M, since it only shows alien blood.)
I think the nude texture is just an excuse for the ESRB realizing their mistake in the face of complaints and adjusting the rating to be more accurate. Of course, the real question is how it got a T in the first place... did anyone there PLAY the game? For more than an hour? Criminy.
To be fair, Windows users (assuming they are historical users) have always had a CLI, and were forced to use it for many, many years. From 1984-2001 or so, Macintosh never had a CLI... so to expect users to know about it, and know how to use it is unfair. If they were trained on Macs as little as 5 years ago, they were trained on a computer where the CLI literally didn't exist.
To be honest, you'd be a better tech is you learned to do everything via the GUI because, frankly, most Mac users either don't know the CLI exists, or have no desire to use it. Mac users converting from Unix or DOS/Windows will follow, but the majority won't.
2) Oblivion is the best RP released since Morrowind, whether or not you think it looks too much like a console port. (And BTW, what the hell does that have to do with how fun the game is? In case you haven't noticed, consoles have fun games on them. Would you have been happier if there was no port and it was 360-only?)
3) What the hell does Neverwinter Nights 2 have to do with Bethestha?
4) What the hell game *do* you like? Do you like any video games at all? How about WOW? How about a nice RP-based MUD? I think in your little rant there, you've managed to alienate every RPG except perhaps KOTOR, so it would be enlightening to know whether you have a good game in mind, or whether you just happen to hate ALL RPGs and haven't realized it yet.
Except that Microsoft has actually done usability testing on it, and they've found that existing Office users can adapt to it very quickly and new Office users can figure things out much more quickly. Usability testing, where they actually watch *actual users* use the product and record the results scientifically. I'll take that over some random Joe spouting crap on Slashdot any day of the week.
I think the real problem here is that the model for the female argonians is pretty goddamned hot, if you ignore the scaly skin. Oblivion was made by scalies!
I'm guessing that this is just an admission that the ESRB didn't really examine the game as well as they should have. Here's a (paraphrased) conversation with a friend of mine about this issue:
Him: The ESRB doesn't really rate the games, they just get a summary of the story and a bunch of screenshots from the developer and rate that.
Me: Well, why don't they rate the actual game? It's not hard; the objectionable stuff in Oblivion would all be found in only a few hours of gameplay.
Him: The problem is that they don't have enough time to do it before the game is released. When the game goes Gold, there are only a few days before it's in stores.
Me: Gaming magazines seem to manage to review games that aren't out without any problem.
Anyway, all this does it make it look like the ESRB doesn't know what the hell they're doing. Which is the LAST thing the gaming industry needs right now, because it's a great excuse to put the government in charge.
That's why you get a cross-cut shredder that not only cuts the paper vertically in little strips, but cuts those strips horizontally every inch or so. Those are virtually un-re-assemble-able.
Yeah, but it doesn't matter whether there is a correlation or not, it only matters is parents and the ESRB think there is. And obviously they do. This is called "facing reality"-- whether you like it or not, that's the way it is. Either work with it and try to convince parents otherwise, or just ignore it and move on, but there's no sense in trotting out the same message over and over, preaching to the choir.
Your version isn't equivalent to mine because the majority of parents do not believe that BMX biking is dangerous, but most parents believe sex is.
I was just trotting out the "jesus, just how many times does america have to reveal it's puritan roots" post for the Nth time.
Next time just assume 90 other people will, as in every single other thread like this, and skip it. Slashdot's already repetitive enough with the crappy jokes and the "dupe!" posts.
I'm not defending the ESRB, just trying to explain things from another point of view that's not generally acknowledged by Slashdot. Also I'm sick of seeing the exact same goddamned post on every single movie/game rating article on Slashdot... and always modded up to +5.
Personally, I think changing the ESRB rating is going to make people think they don't know what the hell they're doing.
To be fair to parents, it's really easy to tell if your child is screwing up their life by being randomly violent-- in fact, usually the police will notice it even if you don't. But it's comparatively very difficult to figure out if your child is screwing up their life by having unprotected sex.
I think I have one in the closet with my Commodore 64, Apple ][ and Atari computer...
But yeah. If you want to be inspired, look at Commodore. Nobody sold as many computers as they did, and looks how fast that company crashed and burned. Heck, until recently, there were more Commodore 64s sold than *every Macintosh ever sold by Apple*. And Apple's been selling them for over 20 years.
I dunno, I use Microsoft hardware all the time and (other than the Xbox 360) I don't use a single Microsoft operating system unless I'm forced to at all. Frankly, I think their hardware products are better quality than their software products. But maybe that's just me.
(porting abandonware would be cheap and make a killer system IMO).
"Abandonware" is just an excuse for copyright infringement. There's no law (or moral justification, IMO) that says that just because a product isn't being sold anymore it's legal to make and distribute however many copies you want.
Sure, right now, companies like Electronic Arts aren't that keen on worrying about all the disk image copies of F-117 for Commodore 64 floating around, but you can bet your ass that if a company like Microsoft tried to put that game on Xbox Live Arcade, they'd be digging up ownership records as quick as possible and calling in their lawyers.
Personally, I work on average 8 months a year and spend the rest of the time travelling - I am rarely stressed and almost never sick.
That's great when you can afford it. But for most people, it's simply not an option until they are close to retirement. If I went into a company with my resume
Remember the "Mind your P and Q" company? Where the theory was that they couldn't register "cars" anymore to sell cars, they'd instead register "pcarsq.com"... and whatever you wanted to buy you surrounded by p and q? Whatever happened to them?
That struck me as a particularly goofy idea, and yet I've never heard the story of their failure. I'm guessing they sold out to someone else.
You think Microsoft's good at polishing a turd and selling it for megabucks, take a look at IBM sometime.
A Lotus Notes license costs more than an Exchange user-- and Lotus Notes is the worst piece of crap groupware program I've ever had the misfortune of knowing.
Or Siemens. You wouldn't believe the crappy quality of some of their medical software and the terrible service provided, yet they're raking it in.
I think it has more to do with the fact that every illegal immigrant understands the legislation being considered, and they all agree that it's not idea. On this issue, even if everyone agrees it's a bad idea, only a small subset of the population understands why, and so you'll never see more than maybe a 1-minute blurb at the end of the nightly news.
I read the documentation, and I did every step it said for installation (even though half of them were wrong, or left out critical information like "this step won't work without SUDO") before I got any Linux users to help me out. I couldn't get it to work. Then I worked with one Linux user, and we got it installed (as far as we could tell), but the card still didn't work. Then I worked with another guy, and still the card didn't work.
You know what? That page you linked me to is the same kind of gibberish in your post. I don't care about ANY of that crap, I just wanted my video capture card to work.
You yourself JUST said that PVR-250 cards are "good" and work with IVTV, and that site (seems) to say the same (or at least there aren't any PVR-250 variations listed in the 'not working' or 'unknown' sections), and yet it doesn't work. That's inexcusable, IMO.
One of my first Linux experiences was a RedHat 6.2 install that claimed that it worked with SoundBlaster 16 cards out-of-the-box with no configuration, and it didn't. I've been lied to by Linux software many more times than any other OS, and I got sick of it so I stopped trying.
I'm sorry I'm not a huge-brained supergenius 1337 haxor like you are, ok? I just want stuff to work, and Linux doesn't work-- and when it doesn't work, it usually lies and says it does.
Every time someone posts that crap, I always have to ask, "where do I go to apply to be a Microsoft shill on Slashdot?" I'm sure it can't be any worse than my current position, huh?
You could just go to the Keyboard control panel and tell Control to behave like Command. That takes like 30 seconds, and support for it is already built-in.
I'm sure I have "done something wrong," but I've installed the same driver for OS X and Windows three dozen times, and I've never had it not work then because even if I do nothing at all except hit "next" and then restart, they work-- every time.
Why don't they work that way on Linux? Isn't that an indication that something on Linux is horribly broken and needs fixed? I sure as hell think it is.
This isn't some rinky-dinky guy sitting in the garage hacking away, this is a huge corporation with probably dozens of developers working on drivers, and they still can't get the install process as easy as a rinky-dinky garage business developing for OS X or Windows can. I think that's a problem, and one that needs to be solved before Linux will be usable by the general populace.
Slashdot Mirror
Then get flamed by the developers. No thanks, I've tried this route before.
Only at home behind closed and locked doors. And drawn curtains.
And even then, what would be the point? For the same money, I can buy a decent TV that 1) won't hurt my eyes, 2) friends can also enjoy, 3) doesn't requirement me to hide from the world because of how moronic I look.
The real problem is that the ESRB rating was way too low in the first place. M is probably the correct rating for the game, considering it's more violent and gruesome than Halo (which got an M. Then again, I don't really feel Halo deserved an M, since it only shows alien blood.)
I think the nude texture is just an excuse for the ESRB realizing their mistake in the face of complaints and adjusting the rating to be more accurate. Of course, the real question is how it got a T in the first place... did anyone there PLAY the game? For more than an hour? Criminy.
To be fair, Windows users (assuming they are historical users) have always had a CLI, and were forced to use it for many, many years. From 1984-2001 or so, Macintosh never had a CLI... so to expect users to know about it, and know how to use it is unfair. If they were trained on Macs as little as 5 years ago, they were trained on a computer where the CLI literally didn't exist.
To be honest, you'd be a better tech is you learned to do everything via the GUI because, frankly, most Mac users either don't know the CLI exists, or have no desire to use it. Mac users converting from Unix or DOS/Windows will follow, but the majority won't.
1) A lot of people enjoy clippy (or one of the other office assistants) and keep them on all the time on purpose.
2) What does Microsoft's usability testing process in 1995 tell us about their usability process today? Nothing.
A couple points:
1) Demonstone was a fine game, if a little short.
2) Oblivion is the best RP released since Morrowind, whether or not you think it looks too much like a console port. (And BTW, what the hell does that have to do with how fun the game is? In case you haven't noticed, consoles have fun games on them. Would you have been happier if there was no port and it was 360-only?)
3) What the hell does Neverwinter Nights 2 have to do with Bethestha?
4) What the hell game *do* you like? Do you like any video games at all? How about WOW? How about a nice RP-based MUD? I think in your little rant there, you've managed to alienate every RPG except perhaps KOTOR, so it would be enlightening to know whether you have a good game in mind, or whether you just happen to hate ALL RPGs and haven't realized it yet.
Wow, spell it M$ *and* call users "Lusers." I bet you're really popular around the office, huh?
Out of curiosity, though, what formatting is "M$" specific? Does only Microsoft offer boldface or something?
Except that Microsoft has actually done usability testing on it, and they've found that existing Office users can adapt to it very quickly and new Office users can figure things out much more quickly. Usability testing, where they actually watch *actual users* use the product and record the results scientifically. I'll take that over some random Joe spouting crap on Slashdot any day of the week.
I think the real problem here is that the model for the female argonians is pretty goddamned hot, if you ignore the scaly skin. Oblivion was made by scalies!
I'm guessing that this is just an admission that the ESRB didn't really examine the game as well as they should have. Here's a (paraphrased) conversation with a friend of mine about this issue:
Him: The ESRB doesn't really rate the games, they just get a summary of the story and a bunch of screenshots from the developer and rate that.
Me: Well, why don't they rate the actual game? It's not hard; the objectionable stuff in Oblivion would all be found in only a few hours of gameplay.
Him: The problem is that they don't have enough time to do it before the game is released. When the game goes Gold, there are only a few days before it's in stores.
Me: Gaming magazines seem to manage to review games that aren't out without any problem.
Anyway, all this does it make it look like the ESRB doesn't know what the hell they're doing. Which is the LAST thing the gaming industry needs right now, because it's a great excuse to put the government in charge.
That's why you get a cross-cut shredder that not only cuts the paper vertically in little strips, but cuts those strips horizontally every inch or so. Those are virtually un-re-assemble-able.
Yeah, but it doesn't matter whether there is a correlation or not, it only matters is parents and the ESRB think there is. And obviously they do. This is called "facing reality"-- whether you like it or not, that's the way it is. Either work with it and try to convince parents otherwise, or just ignore it and move on, but there's no sense in trotting out the same message over and over, preaching to the choir.
Your version isn't equivalent to mine because the majority of parents do not believe that BMX biking is dangerous, but most parents believe sex is.
I was just trotting out the "jesus, just how many times does america have to reveal it's puritan roots" post for the Nth time.
Next time just assume 90 other people will, as in every single other thread like this, and skip it. Slashdot's already repetitive enough with the crappy jokes and the "dupe!" posts.
I'm not defending the ESRB, just trying to explain things from another point of view that's not generally acknowledged by Slashdot. Also I'm sick of seeing the exact same goddamned post on every single movie/game rating article on Slashdot... and always modded up to +5.
Personally, I think changing the ESRB rating is going to make people think they don't know what the hell they're doing.
To be fair to parents, it's really easy to tell if your child is screwing up their life by being randomly violent-- in fact, usually the police will notice it even if you don't. But it's comparatively very difficult to figure out if your child is screwing up their life by having unprotected sex.
I think I have one in the closet with my Commodore 64, Apple ][ and Atari computer...
But yeah. If you want to be inspired, look at Commodore. Nobody sold as many computers as they did, and looks how fast that company crashed and burned. Heck, until recently, there were more Commodore 64s sold than *every Macintosh ever sold by Apple*. And Apple's been selling them for over 20 years.
I dunno, I use Microsoft hardware all the time and (other than the Xbox 360) I don't use a single Microsoft operating system unless I'm forced to at all. Frankly, I think their hardware products are better quality than their software products. But maybe that's just me.
(porting abandonware would be cheap and make a killer system IMO).
"Abandonware" is just an excuse for copyright infringement. There's no law (or moral justification, IMO) that says that just because a product isn't being sold anymore it's legal to make and distribute however many copies you want.
Sure, right now, companies like Electronic Arts aren't that keen on worrying about all the disk image copies of F-117 for Commodore 64 floating around, but you can bet your ass that if a company like Microsoft tried to put that game on Xbox Live Arcade, they'd be digging up ownership records as quick as possible and calling in their lawyers.
Personally, I work on average 8 months a year and spend the rest of the time travelling - I am rarely stressed and almost never sick.
That's great when you can afford it. But for most people, it's simply not an option until they are close to retirement. If I went into a company with my resume
Remember the "Mind your P and Q" company? Where the theory was that they couldn't register "cars" anymore to sell cars, they'd instead register "pcarsq.com"... and whatever you wanted to buy you surrounded by p and q? Whatever happened to them?
That struck me as a particularly goofy idea, and yet I've never heard the story of their failure. I'm guessing they sold out to someone else.
You think Microsoft's good at polishing a turd and selling it for megabucks, take a look at IBM sometime.
A Lotus Notes license costs more than an Exchange user-- and Lotus Notes is the worst piece of crap groupware program I've ever had the misfortune of knowing.
Or Siemens. You wouldn't believe the crappy quality of some of their medical software and the terrible service provided, yet they're raking it in.
The whole industry is busted.
I think it has more to do with the fact that every illegal immigrant understands the legislation being considered, and they all agree that it's not idea. On this issue, even if everyone agrees it's a bad idea, only a small subset of the population understands why, and so you'll never see more than maybe a 1-minute blurb at the end of the nightly news.
I read the documentation, and I did every step it said for installation (even though half of them were wrong, or left out critical information like "this step won't work without SUDO") before I got any Linux users to help me out. I couldn't get it to work. Then I worked with one Linux user, and we got it installed (as far as we could tell), but the card still didn't work. Then I worked with another guy, and still the card didn't work.
You know what? That page you linked me to is the same kind of gibberish in your post. I don't care about ANY of that crap, I just wanted my video capture card to work.
You yourself JUST said that PVR-250 cards are "good" and work with IVTV, and that site (seems) to say the same (or at least there aren't any PVR-250 variations listed in the 'not working' or 'unknown' sections), and yet it doesn't work. That's inexcusable, IMO.
One of my first Linux experiences was a RedHat 6.2 install that claimed that it worked with SoundBlaster 16 cards out-of-the-box with no configuration, and it didn't. I've been lied to by Linux software many more times than any other OS, and I got sick of it so I stopped trying.
I'm sorry I'm not a huge-brained supergenius 1337 haxor like you are, ok? I just want stuff to work, and Linux doesn't work-- and when it doesn't work, it usually lies and says it does.
Every time someone posts that crap, I always have to ask, "where do I go to apply to be a Microsoft shill on Slashdot?" I'm sure it can't be any worse than my current position, huh?
You could just go to the Keyboard control panel and tell Control to behave like Command. That takes like 30 seconds, and support for it is already built-in.
I'm sure I have "done something wrong," but I've installed the same driver for OS X and Windows three dozen times, and I've never had it not work then because even if I do nothing at all except hit "next" and then restart, they work-- every time.
Why don't they work that way on Linux? Isn't that an indication that something on Linux is horribly broken and needs fixed? I sure as hell think it is.
This isn't some rinky-dinky guy sitting in the garage hacking away, this is a huge corporation with probably dozens of developers working on drivers, and they still can't get the install process as easy as a rinky-dinky garage business developing for OS X or Windows can. I think that's a problem, and one that needs to be solved before Linux will be usable by the general populace.